Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Downwind From Gettysburg, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

Go find a copy of I Sing the Body Electric, Ray Bradbury's collection of short stories from which this chunk comes. Check it out of the library. Go buy it, you won't regret it.

Bradbury, in his short story, tells the tale of a man whose obsession is to bring the dead to life. Phipps wishes to make a film about Gettysburg, the film outlined in the passage above. A boy on his father's shoulders translates the Gettysburg Address from it's wind-borne course. [excerpt]

Meaningless Lists Of Soldiers: Hidden In Plain Sight, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

This week I had the chance to visit National Archives 1 to do some research for work into the history of the Federal Armory at Harpers Ferry, and particularly the building I work in. Mather Training Center waswas the Superintendent's House before the War came and upended the entire town. It was nice to get back into the stacks downtown and dig through musty boxes of (in this case) Office of the Chief of Ordinance records.

It brought to mind the last time that I got the chance to root around in the trove that is the Nation's repository down …

"...Let The Spinning Wheel Turn": A Piece Of Gettysburg Lost In Rebeldom, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

Everything eventually comes full circle. The past meets the present meets the future. And we find echoes of the past in the things we do today. It's not a new sensation.

In the early days of January, 1863, one Gettysburgian found an echo from his town in the most unusual (but not unexpected) of places. "It was a cool day yesterday," a soldier, writing under the pen-name Fergus reported to Compiler editor H. J. Stahle, "and as I passed along the street leading towards Winchester, I observed a large two-horse carriage that had arrived in town with a load …